The Outbreak
by MrsAlderaan
Summary: Two disjointed one shots written for Day 5 and 6 of my 30 days, 30 stories Camp NaNoWriMo challenge! Day 5 prompt: TV is interrupted by an emergency news broadcast. The anchor says: "Please remain calm and stay indoors..." Day 6 prompt: She was one of the few who survived the initial treatment.
1. Part 1: Initial Infection

**AN: I am participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this month! My goal: 30 days, 30 stories. I will be trying to reach 30,000 words this month. Don't forget to review, and favorite.**

 **Writing prompt: TV is interrupted by an emergency news broadcast. The anchor says: "Please remain calm and stay indoors..."**

 **Much Love,**

 **MrsA**.

* * *

I've always been a firm believer that, one day, introverts would rule the world. What I didn't realize was that it would happen so soon or that I would be one of those survivors. When it all began, I was happily enjoying a Hobbit and Lord of the Rings extended edition marathon; I was fully stocked up on hot pockets, soda, popcorn, frozen pizzas, and chocolate ice cream. You know, pretty much all of the essentials somebody could ever want while binge watching one of their favorite movie series of all time. Of course, this also meant that I missed all of the warnings, and I mean all of them because of my complete and utter idiocy.

I'm told that, just before the outbreak hit its peak, there was an announcement on television, the radio, and every other medium possible in order to spread the word. Still, I missed it. I was enjoying myself some bagel bites at the time, I think. Apparently, the transmission went on for maybe thirty seconds. The usual multi-colored screen appeared and the grating klaxon noise resounded throughout the country. Finally, Anderson Cooper appeared on the screen. There were no graphics, stock tickers, or flashing backgrounds. You could even see the green screen behind him. No pomp or circumstance was given at all during what would become the last television transmission before the world changed forever. In a somber voice, he opened his mouth and took a deep breath. His greying hair seemed stark white instead of its usual distinguished silver, and the worry, clear as day on his face, aged him ten years in an instant. "Please remain calm and stay indoors…" Then, the reception was cut. There would be no other forthcoming information. From then on, all mass media was dead.

Being on my summer vacation, I didn't notice the changes immediately. Really, I had no reason to leave the house for a few days, and it wasn't abnormal for me to just not hear from somebody for days at a time. Life is busy. I don't expect somebody to check in everyday. I probably should have been more concerned about some of the sounds that I heard from the neighborhood, but I just turned up the volume on my surround sound instead. I don't normally get involved in my neighbor's domestic disputes unless it's to call the authorities. Why would I pick today of all days to start?

After my twenty hour long Tolkien marathon ended, I pried myself away from the couch and passed out on top of the sheets in bed, enjoying the cooling feeling of the bedroom fan as it spun lazily above me. The next day, I decided, would be a Harry Potter marathon and the day after that I binge watched Daredevil on Netflix. By the fourth day, I was starting to wonder why I hadn't gotten a single text or call from family or friends, but it also wasn't entirely unheard of. So, I did what any sensible introvert would do: I stalked their facebook accounts. There wasn't much on most of the profiles, but there were a couple of weird posts on my news feed that should have triggered the notion that something abnormal was up. You know, things like, "I just got bit by one of those things" and "I feel funny". But, I didn't find a video of that emergency broadcast or anything that would trigger the notion, so I shrugged it off for the most part. Everyone knew that I was on vacation. Maybe they were just letting me enjoy my time to relax? In my opinion, that's one of the better gifts that I could ever receive.

When the power went out the next day, I was more than a little aggravated. It's summer in the middle of Phoenix, Arizona. One does not simply go without air conditioning in Arizona, so I decided to call the electric company, hoping that they would give me an estimated time of arrival on that good old AC kicking back on. In the meantime, I opened up all of the windows in my third story apartment before I called APS. So, I'm sure that you can imagine my surprise at this point when not only did the power company's line not even connect, but I looked outside for the first time since the outbreak.

Now, I live in a gated community, so my apartment complex wasn't hit as hard as others. However, there were almost no vehicles parked around the portion of the complex that I could see, and those that were still around were either out of commision or they were a family's second vehicle from what little I could tell.

There were marks on the pavement and cement where tires had burnt out, and there were seemingly random singe marks on the walls and vehicles all around. Why the heck were there burn marks anyway? Did somebody have a flamethrower that I ought to know about?

It had taken me four days. FOUR DAYS to realize that I was living in an apocalypse scenario. What could possibly be so wrong with me that I didn't realize this until now? So, I was standing on my lonely balcony, coming to this realization when I finally decided to look further into the issue. I used my phone's data, which had surprisingly kept running up until this point, in order to learn as much as I could about whatever it was that had happened. When I was finally done, I realized how lucky I was that I was on vacation this week. How lucky I was that I didn't leave home. How lucky I was to have enough supplies to last me even longer.

My eyes grew wide as I realized that I didn't have very much water on hand, so I bolted to the bathroom and stopped up the sink and tub, running them until they were at their fullest. I did the same with the kitchen sink and all of the buckets and other liquid holding vessels in the house. With this added layer of supplies, I felt comfortable enough to last a couple of more days in my own home while I decided what would be my best plan of action.

To be continued...


	2. Part 2: Treatment

**AN: I am participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this month! My goal: 30 days, 30 stories. I will be trying to reach 30,000 words this month. Don't forget to review, and favorite.**

 **Writing prompt: She was one of the few who survived the initial treatment.**

 **Much Love,**

 **MrsA**.

* * *

One in ten. That was the chance of survival they told me when I was given the initial treatment. I'd made it all the way to Georgia, crossing five state lines in the process, and they told me that I had a one in ten chance of surviving their so called 'cure'. Meaning that, nine out of ten times, I would have to be shot in the head before I turned after my inevitable death. Still, it was better for the world as a whole to have it coursing through my veins than to go without it.

From what I was told, the thought behind the cure was that there is no cure to becoming a zombie; the zombie virus will kill you and you will become one of them. If you're bitten, you're dead, but, with this treatment, we can take out the ones that overtook you in the process. The injection, essentially, makes your blood or something poisonous to the zombies. Really, the scientific mumbo jumbo all went over my head in the debriefing. All I know is that I was being prepped by some clearly scared shitless doctor who made a tasteless joke about why she was even bothering to sanitize the injection area if ninety percent of us were going to die anyway.

What I do remember from the meeting was that if I was the one in ten to survive, they would take samples of my blood to find out why I lived. This way, they could hopefully improve the survival rate for this weird cure thing.

A short while later, I was laying on a makeshift bed, with an IV stuck into my arm. Everyone had to have a bag of fluids before they could go through with the treatment, so I was in the middle of a stark white hallway, lined with chairs, cots, and sleeping bags. Across the hall from me was a hugely buff African American man who had clearly beaten the gym. At a certain point, there's nothing else to do right? You can just quit, guy. "Where're you from?" He asked when he noticed me staring curiously. His gaze met mine, and I looked down meekly- still not used to small chat even during the friggin' apocalypse.

"Arizona." I answered quickly, not bothering to give him any fluff or filler. One of us was likely to be dead the next day anyhow. "How about you?" I asked quietly, hearing similar conversations up and down the entire hall.

He smiled a huge, white smile that made me grin back. He just had this jovial nature about him that could bring a smile to your face. "Texas, from up in the pan handle. I can't believe that you made it so far. How was Arizona? I heard…

"That the zeds don't last long there?" I smiled and nodded. "Yeah, we were pretty lucky that it's summer there. If you really think about it, the zombies are decaying flesh. Put decaying flesh out in one hundred degree weather for long enough, and you've just got a bunch of really smelly zombie meat. "Wouldn't Texas be similar?"

His smile waned for a second. "It should've been, but I guess the infection hit Texas during a Cowboy's football game. Our stadium…"

I gasped in shock. "Oh my god! How many?"

"Probably a little under 100,000 at this point. The people that could get away didn't think about barring the doors at first. When somebody finally did the deed, well, who knows how many of those things actually made it out before then." He ran his fingers back on his scalp, as if raking his fingers through the non-existent hair. I silently wondered to myself how long he had been bald, clearly, he'd worn hair at a certain point in his life.

Before the conversation could continue, a nurse made the announcement that we would begin the treatment. There was a mixture of responses from the crowded hallway. Some were cheers of happiness, others were boos of disgust. Clearly, the thought that many of our newfound comrades in the hallway dying was not a favorable thought. Still, the hallway was flooded with as many doctors, nurses, and other techs that could be spared. Within minutes, we all had the vile red liquid coursing through our veins. Not long after that, a doctor came by, offering morphine to the group. He explained that, after about an hour, we would all experience a horrible burning sensation, and many of the group opted to take the pain medicine in order to sleep through the worst of it. Most of the group accepted the offer. When the doctor got to me, I held my hand up into the universal symbol for 'stop', shaking my head 'no' emphatically. "I'll be fine, thanks."

The man across from me whose name I never learned did the same. "If she can go without, so can I."

I looked over at him, eyes widening in wonder at the proud man before me. "What's your name, anyway? I don't think I ever asked."

"My friends call me TJ." He answered smoothly. I imagined that, in another world, I would have fallen for that silky smooth voice. Now, I simply wondered if that beautiful smile would survive the night. "What's yours, sweetheart?"

Involuntarily, I smiled at his use of the colloquialism. "I'm Tara." I answered shyly. "Nice to meet you."

The moment could have easily been described as romantic, we were both so wrapped up in each other's eyes, but it was drawn to an abrupt close by the first screams from the other end of the hallway where the doctors had administered the treatment first. I took a huge, nervous gulp when I saw a few of the nurses rush over and remove the screaming woman from the hallway. That could easily be me soon, and I hadn't even had the morphine. I quickly began rummaging through my bag, finally stumbling upon what I was looking for. Without explaining why, I shoved one of my clean(ish) socks into my mouth, biting down hard before closing my eyes to wait for the worst.

At some point during the night, I must've passed out from the pain. I woke up to find myself staring blearily at a pale white ceiling. When I sat up, I felt intensely dizzy, and I noticed that at least eighty of the one hundred people who were posted up in the hallway were missing. One in ten, I remembered. I was one of the few that had survived the initial treatment.


End file.
